Before She Sleeps
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: BAI-B series Part 5. He was turned away from her, and he was wearing a blue suit instead of his customary brown, but even after spending several years away from him and travelling countless universes, Rose knew she'd never forget that hair. Rose/Ten


Series: Fifth in my 'Before, After and In-Between' series. The series is as follows:

Kissing Complete Strangers and Clinging On For Life

Cannon Fire

Never Too Late To Save Herself

Posing For Pictures As the World Explodes

***Before She Sleeps

Knowing Too Much to Stay

* * *

><p>Oh god, she thought, <em>finally<em>.

He was turned away from her, and he was wearing a blue suit instead of his customary brown, but even after spending several years away from him and travelling countless universes, Rose knew she'd never forget _that _hair.

It was him. The right him. She was finally home.

"Doctor!" she called out as she broke into a run.

The Doctor caught her when she literally launched herself at him. His arms around her felt just as she remembered. The only problem was that when she set her feet back down on the ground and pulled back enough to bring her fingers up to run wonderingly along his jaw line, she noticed that he looked more stunned than happy to see her. He seemed as if he wanted to believe he wasn't just imagining that she was right there in front of him — touching him, even — but was at the same time equally afraid that she _was _there.

Rose realised that, unlike all the other times she'd run into him in her travels, this time he knew that she'd been trapped, and that potential paradoxes weren't the only thing to fear from her being there.

"Rose," he breathed, the word half-catching in his throat. "What are you..." He glanced down, taking in her appearance. "Ah," he said.

"Nah, it's all right," Rose assured him. "The universes aren't gonna break or anythin'. Well, that's not exactly true. All the universes _are _muckin' up. But that's how I'm here, and why I'm here. I didn't make it any worse. I just rode through the cracks that are already there so that I could come here and help stop the whole thing from goin' down."

"I know," the Doctor said.

Rose frowned, and looked up. There was no sign of the stars going out here. They all twinkled almost tauntingly at her in the way the ones from the universe she'd come from — and many of the universes she'd visited in between — might never do again if they couldn't stop the originating event from happening here. But if these stars weren't going out yet, how did the Doctor know what was going on?

Unless it had already been stopped.

Rose gripped the Doctor a little harder, not quite wanting to believe that her relief at finally reaching him — at being able to _finally_ stop running alone through universes and times filled with death and pain and (perhaps the worst thing, at least for her) a distinct lack of _him _— was ill-founded. But it was a useless hope.

She knew him. Maybe she didn't know for sure _exactly _how he felt about her, since he'd never said it. What she did know was that he should at least have a massive grin on his face and should be pulling her even closer against him instead of just gingerly holding onto her as if he knew he shouldn't be touching her at all.

"I'm too late, aren't I?" she asked. "I've already got back to you before now."

The Doctor ran a hair through his already wild hair. "Yes. I'm sorry."

Rose nodded. "Oh," she said emptily.

She thought for a moment that the heavy clouds overhead must have opened up, but the air around her was too chilled to account for the heat of the water streaking down her face. When the Doctor reached up tenderly to wipe it away, Rose realised she was crying.

She finally pulled completely away from him and turned around, wiping angrily at the tears. He'd already seen her cry enough on that beach in Norway when she'd said goodbye. There was no need to make him feel any guiltier than he already did by making him helplessly watch that again; it wasn't _his _fault (at least this time) that she'd landed too far in the future.

She suppressed further tears by reminding her that she could at least take something good from this; clearly, at some stage, she _was _going to find him again.

That would probably make her feel a lot better than it did if Rose could actually see herself with him, even if it would mean yet another risk of a paradox. It wasn't as if she hadn't done _that _before, and this time both Roses would have been old enough and known enough to avoid direct contact with each other. She would have happily weighed the small chance of things going wrong against the knowledge that not only had she found him, but she was still with him, and they were happy together.

Composed once more, she turned back around to face the Doctor.

"So where'm I, then?" Rose asked abruptly, dreading the answer.

Rose thought the Doctor seemed to weigh his words for a moment, which made her feel even more alarmed. Her fears must have made her imagination run wild, though, for he quickly smiled broadly just the way she'd been hoping him to from the start. He said, "With Jackie. Off having a good time in London, I imagine. Well, I say a good time, but you are with _Jackie_, so it's all relative, isn't it? Anyway, you're probably just off doing something boring, like _shopping_." The Doctor shuddered dramatically. "Not really my thing."

"Oh," Rose breathed in relief. "So wait, Mum came back here too?"

The Doctor sighed. "Rose, you know I can't tell you that. It's your future."

He didn't need to tell her, though, because it was the only thing that made sense. How else could she and Jackie be off having a girls' day out together in this universe? Maybe she and Tony and Pete had all come back here to stay; it wasn't as if there were any other versions of any of them floating around this universe to worry about, at least not anymore.

Rose had worried, after having had to make the decision to stay with the Doctor and leave her family and Mickey that day in Torchwood, even if the decision had ultimately been taken out of her hands, that choosing the Doctor again this time might mean she'd never see any of them again. This might all turn out better than she'd ever imagined, though, if she was lucky.

Still, she had no idea why she would have opted out of coming here to San Kloon with him just to visit her Mum instead if she could go see her Mum any old time. She recognised the famous Glass Pyramid in the distance, and remembered her excitement at not having to go through all the sticky sand and sweltering heat of being in Egypt to see real pyramids. She would have thought she'd have wanted to come along in memory of that day. She'd last been there with the Doctor before he regenerated, and she sometimes couldn't help but want to look back to that time with him.

Of course, Rose realised, maybe that future Rose Tyler had just stayed behind because she remembered being here when she was younger, now, alone with the Doctor with no other Rose in sight. Sometimes the ins and outs of time travel really made her head ache something fierce.

Whatever the reason, though, she was the only Rose here with him. She could take advantage of that; spend this day with him.

She held out her hand to him. "I seem to remember there was a great ice cream shop over closer to the pyramid," she said.

He looked hesitant. For a moment, she thought he might tell her that she had to go right away, without being able to spend any more time with him. In the end, whether it was the hint of begging in her look or just the fact that he _wanted_her company in exploring this place again, he interlaced his fingers with hers and grinned.

They took off towards the pyramid, and for a while Rose was able to forget all about the fact that she still had so far to go even though she'd been so hopeful that it was finally over.

In that moment it was just him and her and running.

* * *

><p><em>The next and final part of the series is 'Knowing Too Much to Stay'.<em>


End file.
